The fan is just a 2 pin. The replacement everyone has been using from Newegg is a 3 pin but you just put it in the red and black wire holes and the motherboard takes care of the speed.

Thanks for posting about the 4 pin, I am going to look further into that one. I was hoping for another power connector of some kind, but looks as if its some sort of diagnostic. I'll go read more about it. I'm going to work on that hard drive cooler too, I been wanting to do that for a long time now.

The fan is just a 2 pin. The replacement everyone has been using from Newegg is a 3 pin but you just put it in the red and black wire holes and the motherboard takes care of the speed.

Thanks for posting about the 4 pin, I am going to look further into that one. I was hoping for another power connector of some kind, but looks as if its some sort of diagnostic. I'll go read more about it. I'm going to work on that hard drive cooler too, I been wanting to do that for a long time now.

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Do you know which end of a soldering iron to hold?

Do you own a volt/ohm meter or multimeter?

If you know what you're doing you can tap into ground and +12V (should be the yellow wires, but that's not guaranteed, hence the need for the meter) where the wires come off of the power supply.

I have a soldering iron yes and know how to use it. I dont have a voltmeter though. I'm thinking I can borrow one from someone though I know. Would it be best to tap off the wires that are going to the hard drive? I know in the older Series 2 you could just get one of the many molex adapters and add stuff there where the hard drive was connected so easy.

Here's a graph of the HDD temp of one of my servers. Prior to the big jump in April the server was in a colocation center with lots of fans and a massive HVAC. In April, I pulled this box out of the colo and it sits at home with the top off. IIRC, the HD I have in there was actually pulled out of a TiVo HD. It's a Seagate something.

Are you using the 3 pin, motherboard connector, or the included molex connector? If you are using the 3 pin motherboard connector, maybe you have it backward, or maybe you have the wrong 2 pins connected.

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I plugged the three pin connector in to the mobo where the other fan was. I had the red and black cables in the mobo. The other cable was blue and as I understand is just a speed control and the fan wouldn't work if both the red and black weren't plugged in.

You'd get the extra 4 pin connector you need, plus a non-proprietary SATA power connector. Plus, the brick sits outside the TiVo, so you might not need the TiVo fan at all. Based on the fan's position on the TiVo, it appears it is there to cool the PSU more than the other components.

I have a soldering iron yes and know how to use it. I dont have a voltmeter though. I'm thinking I can borrow one from someone though I know. Would it be best to tap off the wires that are going to the hard drive? I know in the older Series 2 you could just get one of the many molex adapters and add stuff there where the hard drive was connected so easy.

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I was thinking, without ever actually having had my hands on an S3 power supply, that you could unsolder the yellow wires, add a skinny yellow wire into the hole with them, and re-solder, and the same with a skinny black wire for the ground. Don't actually mess with the hard drive's power leads except for temporarily unsoldering 2 of them at the power supply.

Those 2 wires could be the bare leads from a fan, but I'd feel much, much better if there were some sort of disconnect involved that allowed easily disconnecting the hard drive fan without leaving either of the wires added to the power supply "exposed", electrically speaking.

Another possibility is an item I used back in the '70s on car stereo installs.

3M makes a "Scotchlock" connector that's sort of "T" shaped. The crossbar part of the "T" pierces the insulation of the wire you're tapping into, and the up and down part of the "T" is a 1/4" female quick connect, and there's insulating plastic enshrouding the whole thing except for the end where you plug in a 1/4" male quick connect with an oversized insulating shroud that goes over the insulating shroud of the "T" connector.

Perhaps you could find them in an auto parts store if you don't have a decent electronics supply house in town, as so many of us no longer do.

You'd get the extra 4 pin connector you need, plus a non-proprietary SATA power connector. Plus, the brick sits outside the TiVo, so you might not need the TiVo fan at all. Based on the fan's position on the TiVo, it appears it is there to cool the PSU more than the other components.

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The TiVo doesn't use an ATX power supply, it uses a TiVo power supply (in some cases supplying a low current 30 or so Volts for the reverse bias on the tuner varactors, a sort of Zener diode used as a voltage-variable capacitor), and there's speed control and temperature sensing circuitry on the TiVo motherboard for the chassis fan.

Also, the TiVo's chassis fan may be near the power supply's heat sinks, but the air inlet holes are placed so as to cause the fan to pull air over the motherboard and hard drive as well, and I'm sure that's not co-incidental.

What would be great, and will never happen for legal liability and cost of UL approval reasons, is a piggyback power supply that had spring metal contacts to connect to the AC jack on the inside where there's exposed metal, so that it and the original power supply shared the same line cord coming from the wall socket.

the reverse bias on the tuner varactors, a sort of Zener diode used as a voltage-variable capacitor

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All that's beyond me.

But in response to your parallel plug thing, you could always get something like this and run the fan on it. While it wouldn't power on and off with the TiVo, you could put it on a switched outlet or ignore it since unplugging the TiVo is such a rare occurrence.

But in response to your parallel plug thing, you could always get something like this and run the fan on it. While it wouldn't power on and off with the TiVo, you could put it on a switched outlet or ignore it since unplugging the TiVo is such a rare occurrence.

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You'd have to find a way to run the output cable of that thing into the TiVo or the hard drive fan cable out of the TiVo.

Not saying it can't be done, but I like the idea of keeping it all inside the TiVo better, but others may have other preferences.

Thanks for the link, though. It looks like something that would be handy on the test bench.

OK, as a Tivo owner who has really struggled with the fan noise in the Tivo HD for the last three years, let me share some experiences.

I bought the Ebay JMC ,the Newegg Evercool and also the OEM fan from WeakKnees for both my HD and Premiere. The fans are different sizes of course.

The JMC has 2 pin and plugs right into the TivoHD fan connector. It's a real replacement for the Tivo OEM fan Cofan. Output is the same, may be a little quieter.

The Weakknees OEM fan was just as loud as the OEM fan that I thought was defective. Costed about $20.

The Evergreen fan has 3 pins and a molex and pushed more air and was noisy even after the initial blast off.

The Tivo HD is placed in a standing shelf which also contains my receiver, BD player, Media player and HD etc...Unhappily it's in my BR and I am a light sleeper so I am particularly sensitive to noise.

OK, as a Tivo owner who has really struggled with the fan noise in the Tivo HD for the last three years, let me share some experiences.

I bought the Ebay JMC ,the Newegg Evercool and also the OEM fan from WeakKnees for both my HD and Premiere. The fans are different sizes of course.

The JMC has 2 pin and plugs right into the TivoHD fan connector. It's a real replacement for the Tivo OEM fan Cofan. Output is the same, may be a little quieter.

The Weakknees OEM fan was just as loud as the OEM fan that I thought was defective. Costed about $20.

The Evergreen fan has 3 pins and a molex and pushed more air and was noisy even after the initial blast off.

The Tivo HD is placed in a standing shelf which also contains my receiver, BD player, Media player and HD etc...Unhappily it's in my BR and I am a light sleeper so I am particularly sensitive to noise.

Another possibility is an item I used back in the '70s on car stereo installs.

3M makes a "Scotchlock" connector that's sort of "T" shaped. The crossbar part of the "T" pierces the insulation of the wire you're tapping into, and the up and down part of the "T" is a 1/4" female quick connect, and there's insulating plastic enshrouding the whole thing except for the end where you plug in a 1/4" male quick connect with an oversized insulating shroud that goes over the insulating shroud of the "T" connector.

Perhaps you could find them in an auto parts store if you don't have a decent electronics supply house in town, as so many of us no longer do.

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OK, I remember these things now and I never thought about this but its an extremely great idea! I used these things on my 1980 Camaro

My creative ideas are going crazy now! I've already got the cover off looking at how I can do this thing. A HUGE THANK YOU FOR THIS IDEA!